You Who I Called Brother
by Desdemona Kakalose
Summary: Ghosts turn out to be a little less ghostly than you might expect. And that's... nice. Probably. Hopefully. Apocalyptic Conworth.
1. Better Than an Iron Mask

_You Who I Called Brother_

_Chapter One: Better Than an Iron Mask_

Hello friends we are back and looking so sexy and also my shirt is open? This fic was Vaysh's idea, but I did the bits at the end and begining. We are very excited to be putting this out, and also really glad not to be looking at it anymore.

* * *

_Salem, Massachusetts_

_Three Years After the Treaty_

"Holy—I—uhm—"

Worth grinned as Conrad gave up after the third false start and tightened his teeth around the skin at the doctor's collar, bruising deep into the muscle. Sensations were pretty similar, even with him being dead, and the pop of fang through his skin sent a jolt down his spine. The two of them were fumbling in the dark—hell, descriptions didn't get much more accurate that that—in the back of the RV, early in the evening while the world outside was only just starting to light up the streetlights, vague and a little dreamy still. Worth could feel the uncertain press of Conrad's thighs, pinching either side of him as he ground their hips together, pinned more or less in place by the vicious hold Conrad had on his throat. He wouldn't complain about that, though, not one damn bit.

Worth ran a hand up the smooth sides of Conrad's chest, noting with a little toothy satisfaction that he'd stopped wearing that damned t-shirt to bed a week ago and if that wasn't the Conrad-ese equivalent of saxophone music playing in the background then he'd eat his own pillow.

Conrad bit down harder and Worth pulled in a hiss of a breath. Fooling around with Conrad was a little like trying to fix yourself up in the mirror, he was finding out: everything was counterintuitive. The better you did, the more angry he acted.

Take for instance, Worth slipping down elastic by feel only, knuckles brushing a length of skin—and Conrad grabbed his shoulders like he was _this close_ to throwing him off bodily, swore wildly into the bruises his teeth were still pressed against.

It threw him off his game the first time, it did, but the 'stop' he was waiting for never came, and god knew Connie was free as you goddamn like with revoking consent.

Conspicuously silent against Worth's neck, Conrad shuddered, hands dropping from Worth's shoulders to instead claw reflexively at the sheets. Worth thought about lifting one of those up to rest on his own back, maybe encourage him to rake his way down Worth's spine, but his free hand was a little busy at the moment and he was loath to lose momentum now after he _finally_, after all this time—

A shotgun blasted somewhere outside the RV like the end of the world in stereo.

"_Shit,"_ Worth hissed, head going up like a startled prairie dog.

"Well," Conrad said faintly. He coughed discretely, which was hilarious coming from a guy flat on his back with another man's hand still wrapped around his dick. "Uh."

Worth practically rolled off the bed, sullen as all hell and not afraid to show it. "Yeah yeah," he snarled, "duty calls 'n all that bullshit. Ya get off easy this time."

Conrad, still lying a little dazed on the bed, managed to mutter, "Poor word choice."

Of course, it turned out that the shotgun blast was absolutely nothing of interest whatsoever, and that was just so bloody typical Worth could barely summon up the fury necessary to threaten the living piss out of Hanna's trigger happy friends.

He did though. He definitely did.

-A-

It had been a dry spring, and among the humans who had survived in the years since the epidemic first crawled its way through lungs like rust across pipes, the topic of conversation was solely concerned with that year's crops. There were only a few times during the warmer season when one could plant, and without the rain, the more time passed, the more concerned they grew.

Dirt wheezed out of worn, bunching fabric as two undead men took seats at a table not too far from the hotel bar. The older of the two kicked feet up on the chair across from him, only half listening to the droning around him. It concerned him slightly. Hanna still ate. His meal tickets still ate. Fuck knew he still liked to smoke, even if it didn't do him any good any more. The vampire beside him sat with pursed lips. Nothing new there, really, but it was the hunch of shoulders as forearms rested on the tabletop that spoke of how deeply the situation was effecting him.

"Oi," an elbow to the ribs was met with a tightening of eyebrows, "calm down. Quit lissenin' in if it's buggin' ya s'damn much."

"Some of us like to keep abreast of the situation around us."

"Bullshit. 'm th' only one 'round here keepin' track o'breasts. Eeh, sides Hanna. He don't count, though."

"Ha," despite the annoyance in the face and voice, Conrad's shoulders relaxed a fraction. "Should I even ask why he doesn't count?"

"Ain't ever gettin' ter second base issee? 'nless yer volunteerin'. Dunno if I'm real comfortable with sharin', darlin'."

"Right, and now I see why I shouldn't have asked."

Worth grinned, more a bearing of teeth than a show of happiness. Their name was what had been getting them by in the past few months. Around here in the high cultured northeast, magic wasn't new, wasn't special. Everyone knew a trick or two these days. Hell, Hanna was responsible for a good portion of that. No good runes for growing crops, though, Worth had already asked about that one. It just went right back to the life for life bullshit, and he wasn't letting the kid run himself dry for an ear or two of goddamned corn.

Your best bet was to find a high powered ghoulie and contract them to keep the stock in order, but gods were kind of thin on the ground these days and generally more trouble than they were worth.

Mugs thunked onto the table, two warm, and one fizzing. Volunteers were easy to find at Treatyfest. Hell, there were even small factions of fangirls out there. Their interest in the doctor had only grown (and become something he was aware of) after Conrad had taken it upon himself to bring Worth back. Damn shame, he thought, tilting back his mug of blood, but it figured. Every time he thought he might get laid, something had to come in and cockblock. Even with the sporadic nature of it, he had been having more sex before starting this sort of official thing with Conrad, and now that things were out in the open, even with them still sharing a bed, he hadn't gotten farther than a few stunted attempts at fumbling in the dark.

This evening had been the first time it had really looked promising, and you can see how well that went.

Who the hell wanted to be a thirty-one year old virgin? Conrad goddamned Dillon Achenleck, apparently. Maybe he believed that internet rumor about turning into a wizard if you made it to your forties. Stupid. Vampires couldn't use magic.

Also, stupid middle name.

Stupid ears.

Stupid face.

Yeah, Worth was giving it another go later that night. Maybe if he could get Conrad drunk again. Could be a good idea. Someone was approaching them, Worth could hear the heartbeat and smell the sweat on skin. Female, healthy enough, but underfed, just like most people these days, coming out of the lean, harsh time of winter. Probably another fangirl. Goddamned annoying.

"Excuse me."

"Innaminute, sweetheart. 'm busy." Conrad would probably take care of shooing her off. Worth was preoccupied figuring out how to convince Conrad it was a good idea to get hammered again. The last time he'd managed it, Conrad had managed to knock over a house. It had been intentional that time, though. Funny as hell, if you ignored the mission they'd had to go on to repay the governor of that particular village.

Who the fuck eats dragon eggs, anyway? Smell like sulfur.

"I said, excuse me. I'm talking to you."

Persistent and a little bitchy. Something about her was reminding him of someone. Whatever. Time to give the shove off via a long and well timed drink of blood.

"Luce."

Well that had his attention. Red eyes wide and startled, he looked up. The mug in his hand drooped, body frozen by the shock of seeing a face that he didn't think he'd ever see again, one he'd forced himself not to hope to see again, had tried to scrub from his mind. He swallowed before croaking, "…'Liv?"

The sharp crack of knuckles against his face tipped him enough, knocking him out of his sprawl in the chair and onto his back. Wood scraped and thumped as the chair fell beside Worth and the woman began to rage. "You fucking asshole! All this time! You've been alive all this time!"

Fingers rubbed the hollow between cheekbone and jaw. "Well, not 'xactly."

Her hair was still short the way he remembered it, still that unnerving shade of pale gold, so much finer than his own. Her eyes were like his used to be, though, deep and blue and far too worn and weary. Conrad was stuck in place, body poised to intervene, humming on the edge of a shape shift. He spared his partner a glance before slowly rising to his feet. "Tell ya wot. Less have a sitdown 'n' we kin go over all this like adults."

"Oh fuck you," she snorted, glancing over her shoulder and giving a quick jerk of her head at someone she had spotted behind herself. The woman's long limbs folded themselves into a chair, one arm draping itself over the back, the corners of her eyes were tight and mouth pulled down into a scowl as she huffed. "You're buying."

"Yeah, fine." Joke was on her. Shit was free for them here. Slowly he righted the chair and sat in it around the same time that a man showed up, hovering uncertainly behind Liv like a concerned shadow. "Be a lady 'n' watch th' language."

"You should talk," she let two waiters pass before hailing an older woman. "Whiskey. Bottle."

He scowled. "Not gettin' nothin' fer yerself?"

"Don't even start on that."

"Ain't startin' on nothin'. Shouldn't be drinkin' that shit."

"Luce, I'm thirty three years old." Her eyes rolled.

The man continued to hover behind her, sharing guarded glances with Conrad.

"Look, I'm sorry but," Conrad interrupted, clearly not sorry at all, "explanation, please?"

"Wot, ya ain't figured it out yet, Connie? Don't see no resemblance?"

His ladyship squinted, hovering between a bitchy retort and actually looking at the two blondes seated with him before leaning back in his chair, nostrils flaring as he made the connection.

"Jesus Christ, there are more of you. That's just what the world needs. Also," an accusing finger pointed. Bad habit. Worth wondered where he'd picked it up from, "fuck you. You never once told me you had a sister."

"Nice, Luce, real nice. Good to see you care so much."

Brother and sister stared at each other across the table. Conrad cleared his throat. "Yes, well, I'm sure you two have oodles to catch up on-"

"Oodles?" Christ, they'd said that in stereo. It had even weirded Worth out.

"Yes," the larger of Conrad's fangs poked out over lower lip, "so why don't we just leave you two alone to hash things out? I'll, ugh, go find Hanna or Zephyr or something, I suppose."

Hoverman placed a hand on the woman's shoulder and leaned down near her ear. "I'll just be a few tables away if you need me."

She smiled up at him, patting his hand, and Worth's trigger finger twitched. The man and Conrad each wandered off and a bottle found its way to the table. Worth popped his neck. "Yer boyfriend looks like a real fag, Olivia."

Thin eyebrows raised. "So does yours."

"Feh," he snatched the bottle before his sister could, taking a swig directly from it with a grimace.

"He as cold a fish in bed as he looks?"

"Colder."

"Sucks to be you. Mine puts out."

"Sucks ter be him. 'm gonna kill 'im."

"You've said that about every guy I ever brought home."

"Difference is," he pointed with the bottle, "I kin do it now real easy. Ain't no one gonna say a thing."

"I would say things haven't changed," she bit out, eyeing his mouth.

"Yeah, like I said. Ain't 'xactly alive." Ugh, the whiskey was rolling in his stomach. Time to put the bottle down and switch to the fairy wine. Or just get more blood. Or get Betsy.

The woman's fingers rapped against the table top as she watched him. "Why did you do it? Why'd you turn against us?"

He grimaced against the angry tides in his stomach. "Fuck're ya on 'bout? Ain't turnin' 'gainst no one."

Olivia's face was stony, difficult to read. God she really was older now, wasn't she? A cigarette made its way to her mouth. "You're one of them now, Luce, don't deny it."

"Wot, a vampire? Yeah, fine, so I'm one a th' undead douchebags. Blame th' cold fish. I was dyin' 'n' he turned me. Heat a th' moment kina thing." He was torn between chastising her for smoking and asking to bum a light. Ah, well, good on her for not listening to him on the no smoking thing. Hard to bitch at her for it now. He still could, it would just be hard.

"C-" she hesitated a moment, taking a deep drag, blowing it out slowly before resuming. "That vampire turned you?"

"Yeah. Don't look like much but most vamps're all pomp an' bullshit. Connie at least don't put on no airs." She looked unconvinced and he continued. "Ain't s'bad. Has its perks." He sniffed, tasting her pheromones in the back of his throat. "Know ya ain't pregnant or nursin', fer one. Guess Romeo ain't 's perky in th' sack as yer claimin'."

"Not for a lack of trying," she grinned at his immediate glare. ""IUDs are a wonderful thing."

"Ain't good, Liv," he licked his lips, fingers rubbing against the mug of wine, medical complications quickly running through his brain.

"Oh it's been great."

A muscle in his jaw jumped. "I ain't fuckin' around here. How long ya had it? At least four years now? Only good fer five. It's gotta come out."

"I know, Luce." She picked up the whiskey bottle, rolling it back and forth in her hands, taking her eyes off of him for the first time, fervently reading the worn and water stained label.

"Do ya?" It wasn't the most savory thing to think on, but sometimes you had to do things you didn't want to do. "Fine. I'll take it outta ya. There're some decent med stations 'round here-"

Olivia's head shot up, face screwed up with disgust. "Ugh, no. I don't care how close we've been, Luce, we are not…no. No, absolutely not."

"Liv."

"Look I have someone," at his disbelieving stare she set the bottle down. "I do. She's back at the town where I was staying. We were doing a shoot out there when the world went tits up. She's a good doctor. She's going to remove it. I just," a brief hesitation, "need to take care of a few things first."

"Like?"

"…A few things." The bottle met her mouth and she took a drink, hissing as it rolled down her throat.

"Yeah, like that ain't cryptic. Fuck're ya up to?"

"Ah, ah. Language, Luce. What would mother think?"

"She wouldn't. She'd 've been passed out on th' couch by three in th' afternoon."

She smiled wryly, back to looking at the bottle. "I suppose so. Unless it was a dinner party night. She stayed sober for those well enough."

"Sure did. Plen'y attention sent her way ter keep clean."

Olivia looked back up at Worth. "I guess you still remember enough. I wasn't sure how much demons remember when they turn. How much of you remains you, if anything does."

"Ain't no demon, 'Liv. 'm jus' me. Only difference is I might live a li'l longer 'n' I got some shitty new allergies."

"What might those be?" Eyes narrowed, the corners of her mouth tilted downwards.

Worth picked up the mug of blood, swirling the thickening contents with a finger. "Less jus' say I ain't gonna be spendin' time at th' beach."

"Don't want to give away secrets, then?"

"Ain't no real secrets ter vamps. 'cept," the finger pressed into his mouth, dragged along his teeth. He had no idea how the hell Conrad had kept eating the bagged shit. Fresh was the only type that ever really put a halt to the dry rasp in the back of his throat. "Th' rice thing? Yannow, where ya dump out a bag 'n' we gotta sit there 'n' count it? Only works on the ones with OCD."

Olivia looked less than impressed. "OCD demons?"

"They're out there. Hell, most of 'em got th' same or worse neurosis that humans do. Unseelie tend ter be easier ter deal with than humans most a th' time. Easier ter read, more honest intentions."

"Right. Of course. I'll definitely believe that coming from, well," a vague gesture towards Doc Worth was followed by a sigh, arms crossing in front of Olivia's chest.

Worth's own arms crossed as well, wooden back of the chair digging in just below his shoulder blades as he leaned back in his seat. "Ya gonna tell me wot's buggin' ya, 'Liv? Or 'm I supposed ter jus' guess it? Always hated when ya pulled that bullshit."

"I don't exactly like demons."

"Yeah, pretty sure I caught that earlier. 'm still me. Hell, wot, ya afraid they're gonna try 'n' steal yer purse or sommat?" It was Worth's turn to gesture, this time towards where Conrad had wandered off to stand uncertainly at the bar. "If they're stealin' anyone's purse, it's Conrad's, not yers, 'n' he's 'one a them'. Maybe ya ain't noticed but we're surrounded by Seelie 'n' defected Unseelie 'n' ain't no one tryin' ter-"

"They killed everyone."

Worth's jaw snapped shut.

"Where I live? Or where I used to live, anyway. One night a group of them came. Very few survivors. They weren't after purses."

Cold sickness lanced through Worth's chest. "They do anythin' ter ya?"

"No. Not to me." Hands rubbed thin arms. Olivia looked around herself, thinking before speaking again. "But they did enough. I need to get some supplies and run a few errands before I can go back and before we can even start to rebuild."

He had a feeling Olivia wasn't telling him everything. Typical. As close as they had been, between their age difference and the decided lack of positive role models, he had been a pseudo parent to her more often than not. It meant she would tell him things in time, but never give him everything at once. "Wotcha need? We got pull here. Kin getcha pretty far."

There was a slight stiffening in her posture. "Thank you. I will take you up on that. But I feel I should warn you, I am wearing an iron cross."

He snorted a laugh. "'Liv, yer jus' 'bout th' farthest thing from somethin' I wanna eat."

"Maybe, but I don't know about your friends." She was looking back towards the bar as well. "A preemptive warning can't hurt."

"Connie ain't had his mouth on no one but me in months. We get-" he shook his nearly empty mug for emphasis, "-donations. Th' zombie don't eat nothin' 'cept th' sunshine 'n' rainbows comin' outta Hanna's mouth. Hanna eats food like a normal bloke." Worth finished off the mug despite his sister's obvious chagrin. "'n' don't think ya gotta worry none 'bout Hanna gettin' handsy. Kid's an idiot, but he'll keep his hands to himself, not that iron's gonna do anythin' ter him."

"Alright. I guess I could use the help. I have a gun, too, though. Thought I'd mention it."

"Good start," Worth pushed back from the table. "Less getcha another."

-A-

As expected, Olivia hadn't been giving up all the pertinent information at the start. Away from most of the various non-humans she had been more willing to open up, and Worth was scowling as they sat inside the camper.

He looked at them from where he leaned against the kitchenette counter. Directly across from him was the eating nook, with Conrad seated on the edge closest to Worth, then Hanna, Olivia, and on the far side by the driver's seat, Mr. Hover with a thankfully quiet, but unexplained, child in his lap. The kid better be a relic from Mr. Hover's past. For the time being, Worth wasn't asking. He was distracted.

"Bullshit. Ya ain't doin' it."

"Have you ever successfully told me what to do, Luce?"

"Seem ter recall a few times. There was that party ya wan'ed ter go ter. Made it real clear that wasn't happenin'." He cast a warning glance at Hanna's lowering gaze. The mage only managed to raise his eyes and the flush in his cheeks just before earning himself a quick cuff upside the head.

"Barricading me in my bedroom doesn't count as making me do what you want."

"'Fraid it does."

"Well then you might as well count the time you picked me up and carried me out of Bret's car."

"Yer damn right I will. He was only after one thing 'n' I wasn't havin' it."

Blue eyes rolled in Olivia's head. "Oh for God's sake, Luce, we were sitting at a drive in restaurant eating."

"Wait," Conrad interrupted, staring incredulously from behind hazy lenses, "are you seriously telling me you pulled your sister out of a car while she was on a date?"

Olivia pursed her lips. "Hamburger in hand. And all we were doing was eating. That's it."

"Yeah, thass wot ya were doin' then," he scowled and pointed his finger. "Soon's ya let yer guard down he was takin' ya ter Anal Makeout Point or sommat."

"That doesn't even _exist,_ and we were going to go to a movie not-"

"Oh like he weren't gonna do somethin' in th' theater?"

"I could handle myself. You didn't have to throw me in your car and then go back to beat him up."

"Bullshit. 'Course I did." The doctor retracted his accusatory finger, feeling some personal pride. "Was makin' a point."

In an effort to continue living, Hanna had covered his eyes with both hands. "Did you beat him up with the hamburger? I remember that one time you broke a sub over a guy's head."

"That was a one time thing. Used fists on loverboy. Shoulda taught ya more self-defense b'fore lettin' ya outta th' house."

"Luce," Olivia looked nearly pained, "I don't think Lamont's testicles could have taken any more of my self-defense."

"Dear God, should I even ask? No, no, I shouldn't," fingers pinched the bridge of Conrad's nose. "I shouldn't at all, but morbid curiosity compels me to do so."

"I held 'Mont down so she could practice her kicks 'n' knees."

"Charming, Worth. Simply, charming. Bravo. Well done. I'm sure they both got so much out of that interaction."

Worth waved a hand dismissively. "Bah, was good fer 'm"

"I'm sure that's exactly what Lamont was thinking when he pissed blood. You really _have_ been a completely narcissistic maniac your entire life, haven't you?"

Liv's exasperated half-grin faded, and she tapped the table with one short nail. Back to business then. "So are you going to help me or not? I don't want to have to take them on alone, but if I have to, I will."

"Bullshit ya will. This whole scheme is fuckin' stupid. Settin' aside th' danger a tryin' ter kill 'em, how in th' hell do ya expect ter track down an entire group a Unseelie, anyway?"

"I don't need the whole group. I just need to find their leader. That's all."

"Yeah, thass all. Good Christ, 'Liv." Long fingered hands dragged down Worth's face like vines spreading across a building. "Yer talkin' suicide. Ya do realize that, don't ya?"

Her voice was soft but stern. "I made a promise, Luce. I need to come through on it."

"Second option?" Hanna held up one of the hands that had been covering his wandering eyes. "We can totally take you to a safe location and get you set up there. I think this is an excellent option and support it fully so we can not do that other thing, ok?"

"Can you move everyone in an entire settlement? We may have lost a lot of people, but it could have been worse. A large portion of us were out on a trading trip and returned to the soot."

"Third option," the doctor leaned against the side door. "Think we got some rope somewhere. Don't take much ter hogtie someone."

From the passenger's seat up front, a low voice curled out like water across parched earth. "Perhaps there is a fourth option."

"Hopefully a reasonable one," grumbled Conrad, cleaning glasses with the tail of his shirt while Olivia and Mr. Hover kept their eyes on him.

"Hey, mine was totally reasonable! C'mon!"

Worth sometimes hated it when the zombie interjected his own thoughts. He nudged Hanna's head hard enough to earn silence and an irritated look from Conrad. Maybe he shouldn't have shoved his arm out in front of Connie's face to do it. "Fuck it, I'll give a lissen. Wotcha got, green bean?"

"The council has been keen on finding the pockets of resistance. They have also done a thorough job of, hmm, I believe the word they used was 'cleansing' them." Road cone glow bounced from the inside of the windshield, tinting the dashboard. "It is not entirely unreasonable to assume that if information is gathered, the council would be ready and willing to provide 'cleansing' of this particular group of Unseelie. As a result, your sister Olivia should remain safe, we should remain safe, but her ultimate goal will still be achieved. If she then chooses to accept Hanna's offering of a new home, we may have had enough time to find a suitable location to house all of her fellow villagers. All we have to do is gather the information."

Worth sometimes didn't mind when the zombie interjected his own thoughts. He took a considering breath, arms across his chest. After a moment he looked over to his sister. "'Liv?"

"It…sounds reasonable enough. But…" Her eyes met Worth's gaze. "If that means I get what I want, I'll agree to it. Oh," blue narrowed, "and before ya even try to go there, don't think this means ya get to still rope me and toss me off in some locked room. I'm committed to seeing this through, Luce, and I'll shoot ya myself if I have to."

Conrad slid the polished glasses back into place. Didn't do a damn bit of good to rub dirty glasses with dirty clothes, but the one fanged fag seemed to just be stuck in a habit of it. Maybe it was part of the OCD. "Where would you shoot him, exactly?"

"His ass, of course. A pain in the ass for a pain in the ass."

The vampire smiled. "You know. I think I may actually be growing fond of you."

She looked across the human barrier of eyes-still-covered-but-peeking-through-the-fingers Hanna, teeth bared in a grin. "Fancy going out back with me, then?"

The vampire's back straightened, head tilting to the side with confusion. "What? Why would we go somewhere."

"You know. So we can be," She gave the next word as much weight as possible, eyebrows raising on her tall forehead. "alone."

Conrad flailed. That motherfucker actually flailed and nearly fell off of the bench. Worth had to pinch the inside of his arm to keep from laughing. "Oi," he managed eventually as Conrad shrank his way out of the booth with all the wild eyed terror of a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, "knock it off. Ya ain't even each other's type. Well, 'cept fer th' fact that 'Liv seems ter like fags."

Mr. Hover didn't look particularly pleased by that comment. Worth batted his eyes at him and allowed fangs to peek over his lower lip. Mr. Hover looked decidedly less happy now and cleared his throat. "Olivia? It's late. Maybe we should head out. Let Chloe get some sleep?"

"Yeah, I guess. Seems like she's doing just fine in your lap, but," her obvious stare at Worth's fangs had him almost feeling a pang somewhere in his chest, "it would be good to have her lie down somewhere."

"Kin stay here. Got a back room. Kin sleep there with th' kid 'n' loverboy kin sleep up front with us."

As they scooted their ways out of the dining nook and off of Hanna's bed, the corners of her mouth wrinkled in a way that definitely did something to the inside of Worth that he was staunchly ignoring. "Yeah, I'm sure that would be a great idea." Standing, she hesitated, a haze of uncertainty filtering across her face briefly. "We'll come back by tomorrow…night, I guess. The help is…appreciated, Luce."

Her hand raised, held itself out before Worth. He swallowed once, feeling a slight burn behind his eyes as he slowly unfolded his arms to shake his sister's hand. It was warm. Incredibly warm. He could feel his palm leeching heat from her skin. "Yeah. Wotever. See ya later. Best not let him get handsy. I'll know it if he does."

Her hand fell free, and Worth wasn't sure if she was putting it in her pocket for warmth or if it was to wipe the feel of him from her palm. "Yeah, I'll take it under advisement. Get sleep or, whatever you do now. Eat a goat or something."

"Goats taste too goat-y." He looked up and over towards the old, faded curtains draping listlessly across the closed breakfast nook window, his own hands sliding down into the front pockets of his jeans. "But I'll take it under advisement."

"Yeah. Do that."

He heard them leave rather than saw it, much abused side door whining a complaint as it was opened and eventually shut behind his sister, her faggot boyfriend, and the quietest kid he'd ever met. He sighed once. "'m goin' ter sleep."

"What? It's only two or three in the morning."

"Then I want ter be, y'know," Worth batted his eyelashes at Conrad, "alone."

"Oh fuck you."

"If ya want. I'll give my consent."

Conrad snorted, but Worth didn't offer further comment, shuffling his way into the back room. Once there, he stretched out on his back, one arm slung across his eyes. It had been more than a full evening for him and among all the thoughts fighting for dominance in his head, the winner seemed to be _what the fuck kind of a mess were they about to stir up this time?_

-A-

At about 8:00 the next evening, the sun went down. The world flickered on, shadows shaking one by one from Doc Worth's senses until his consciousness lay blinking and naked. Him and his consciousness both, actually, give or take a pair of shorts.

Conrad was already gone, which was pretty unusual. Must be cloudy out—Conrad was more sensitive to that sort of thing than him.

Worth stretched, doing a couple impressively stupid looking things while nobody was around to see him do them. Being dead was one hell of a relief on the gradually decrepifying muscles and goddamn he hadn't been this in shape sense he was twenty-five, but better wasn't _perfect_ and his carcass still took some (unfortunate) upkeep.

Halfway through something vaguely yoga, there was a knock on the door. Straightening up like a snap, he attempted to adopt the casual stance of someone who hasn't been performing faggy acts of bodily upkeep. Hm. That could actually include a wide range of things, come to think of it.

"Ya need somethin'?" he called, glancing around the room to see if he could pin down a cleanish shirt.

"Oh good you're up," Hanna's voice called back. "Your sister's antagonizing Conrad and I am _so_ not getting in the middle of that like _ever_, but if you wanna like, throw a bucket of ice water on them or something be my guest."

Worth dug the heel of his palm into his eye socket. Way too early for this bullshit.

"Awright ya goddamn coward, I'm comin'."

"Hey, you're the one that keeps telling me to exercise a little self-preservation. Well hey!" He slapped the door, "I'm doing it!"

Worth yanked the door open so quickly that Hanna, who'd been leaning on it, tumbled sideways into the room and landed on his shoulder in a sprawl.

"So you'll run headfirst inter a ghoulie's tender embrace but ya won't tap my baby sister on the back?"

"Whaaaat," Hanna whined, rubbing futilely at his smushed shoulder, "she's a _Worth_, dude. Waaaaay scarier."

The doctor shrugged, a little mollified despite himself. "Well," he grunted, "let's see what the damage is, then."

Outside the RV, a little ways to the side, Conrad and Liv were snarling at each other like cats in a territory dispute. Liv's faggot boyfriend was observing it uneasily, eyes flickering now and then to the white point of Conrad's protruding fang—when he opened his mouth, though, you could see the short but wicked curve of the second too.

Conrad spotted Worth immediately. "Would you talk some sense into your sister!" Conrad shouted, fist planted on hip.

"I'unno," Worth called back, fluffing the fur around the collar of his coat. "In my experience yer the one more likely ta bust inter a tizzy. Not on yer period today are ya, darlin'?"

"_What?_" Conrad nearly shrieked. "You absolute fucking traitor!"

"Don't worry Liv," the doctor said, as he stepped up the curb with on long stride, "'e's prolly just sufferin' from a bout'a hysteria, in my medical opinion. Yanno we got ways'a treatin' hysteria," he added, with an eyebrow wiggle in Conrad's direction.

Conrad scowled. "I'd rather have a Victorian dildo up my ass than talk to you right now," he muttered, quiet enough that if Worth hadn't recently had his aural abilities improved by about tenfold, he wouldn't have been able to make it out.

"Explicit," he remarked, with a bit of a whistle.

"Ugh," Conrad huffed, and took off with a stomp.

"So," Worth said, turning back to his sister, "what's the dispute with her ladyship, then?"

Liv sighed and lit up her cigarette, the bright end flaring orange in the falling darkness. "Your boyfriend wants to drive the RV on our little road trip, Luce."

"Yeah? And?"

Liv frowned. "And?"

"And what else, then?"

"Nothing else," Liv said, frustrated.

The doctor held up one hand. "Wait," he said, "yer tellin' me you two got in a fight cause ya don't want Connie ter drive?"

"That's the gist of it, yeah," she replied, breathing pale smoke.

Worth hissed out a sigh. "Shit Liv, now ya gone an' done it. Gonna hafta call the princess back over here 'n apologize, an' I ain't no good at that."

"Apologize for what?"

"Pickin' the wrong horse. Liv, Connie's our regular pilot. Ain't nobody told you?"

"He mentioned it," she said, offhanded as you please.

Worth felt his brows furrow. "Then what's yer problem, eh?"

"My _problem_ is that I'd rather not have a demon behind the wheel if it's all the same to you."

"Y'know I ain't one ter point fingers, but yer terminology could use some tweakin'. Ya can't go around callin' every moonlighter in the city a demon, this is a cosmopolitan type area."

"What would you have me call them then?"

"Well Conrad fer one is a regular old vampire, and a damn competent driver."

"Maybe so, but I'm not going anywhere with him behind the wheel."

"Oh yeah? Who else ya wanter drive ya?"

"I could, or Virgil would be fine with me."

Worth lifted an eyebrow and glanced around the street. "Ya want the stumblin' dead guy to drive ya, but ya got a problem with Connie?"

"Not—" Liv started, and then paused, bewildered. "His name is Virgil?"

Worth shrugged. "Dunno what his name is today, thought you knew."

She shook her head. "No," she said, firmly, "not that… either. Virgil is my boyfriend, which you would know by now if you were even remotely interested in my life."

"I'm in'erested in yer life Liv. I ain't much interested in yer boyfriend. There's a difference."

"I don't really think there _is_."

"We ain't havin' this conversation right now. Conrad's drivin' an' that's that, ya take it 'r leave it."

The second the words came out of Worth's mouth, he realized he'd made a tactical misstep. That was not the right threat to make, not even remotely—she'd barely agreed to come with them at all, and even that had been a bargain. His knee-jerk reaction had been that same old snap, but this wasn't his baby sister needing the car for a barely approved date night. This was not at all the same.

But instead of balking and stalking off, Liv pursed her lips and stared hard at nothing—calculating maybe. After a cold second of contemplation, she looked up again. Her blue eyes flashed with something like grim resolve.

"Fine," she said. "But I'm riding shotgun."

(TBC)


	2. (Florida)

_You Who I Called Brother_

_Interlude (1)_

this was requested months ago, so! We slipped it in as a between-chapters intermission

* * *

_Capitol of the Southern Territories_

_Florida_

_Nearly Three Years After_

Conrad was almost as hesitant as the doctor when it came to unloading from the RV to check into their hotel—_hotel_ being a generous term for the repurposed lawyers' office in the middle of downtown Tallahassee. There had to be better places to host visiting dignitaries than a glass building with no air conditioning, but wherever it was the local committees didn't appear to be interested in locating it.

Not that they were actually _dignitaries_, properly speaking. Actually Worth wasn't completely sure what a dignitary was, _properly_ speaking. Maybe you had to be foreign. Maybe you had to have a private jet.

"I hear ya," Worth said, giving the six story building a withering glare. "I ain't lookin' forward ter another stay in the office either."

"I'm not worried about the hotel," Conrad replied, worrying a lip. A faint black stain was starting on the faded pink skin. Bit early in the evening for that.

"Well y'oughta be," Worth grunted, picking up his bag. Taking things off the RV was a pain in the ass. He'd be just as happy sleeping in the camper as sleeping in a third story corner office, but then again, he had a bed in the camper.

He glanced over at Hanna, who was looking smug about something in a crumpled-up letter and poking his undead buddy in the hollow ribcage. Worth frowned. Not that it was anybody other than Hanna's fault, but the fact remained that Hanna still didn't have a real bed to sleep on most nights. Hard to begrudge him a night in a hotel here and there after spending a couple minutes contemplating the RV bench.

"It's just," Conrad carried on, nervously, "after what happened at Christmas—"

Worth tensed up, shoulders locking in a protective hunch. _That_ fiasco.

"Don't even bring it up," Worth muttered, making a quick abortive motion with his free hand. "The little fucker's like a bloody fey, I think he kin hear us talkin' about him."

Conrad pursed his lips. "Do I detect a hint of superstition about your highly educated person, Doctor?"

Worth tossed Conrad's bag at its owner, hard enough to get him a displeased "oof".

"Ain't superstition if it's empirically verifiable."

"Alright then. Verify it empirically."

Worth had a sudden, terrible flash of alarmed instinct. He looked up. He turned around.

"How that fer proof," he growled, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

In the second it took Conrad to peer over his shoulder, the expression on his pale face evolved from dawning terror to blind, dilated hostility. His round fingertips lengthened and shone.

"Hello John," he said, in a tone that any animal would recognize as cold blooded warning. His red irises flickered.

"Jezebel," John replied, warily. "Tempted any souls lately?"

Worth dropped down and busied himself with fumbling through the baggage. Now was not the time or the place to thrash teenagers within an inch of their lives, and if he could just stay out of it he might manage not to break anything vital tonight. The week was young.

"You know," Conrad snarled, "I have had it up to about_ here_ with your shitty attitude—"

"My attitude!"

"After what you did to me at Christmas I can't believe you'd—"

"I was trying to do you a _favor—"_

"some fucking nerve you little brat—"

"Hold your tongue you painted whore!"

Well there went the week. Worth swung up to his feet and whirled. "Alright you little shit, listen—"

John stared at him. John stared, so pale now that a stranger might have mistaken the three of them for a single bloodless family unit. Worth forgot what he had been about to say.

John stared. And stared. And then he promptly threw the bag he'd been carrying onto the concrete where it burst open like an overripe watermelon.

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" he howled, hands making strained clawing shapes in front of his chest.

Worth blinked. Worth blinked, then reached into his pocket and dug out a cigarette, which he slid between his teeth and lit with a neat little snap.

"Surprise," he said, with a mean kind of grin.

John turned around and left, and they didn't see him again until the day they left town, where he was found wandering dazedly on the edges of town, muttering about providence.

(A)


	3. The City on the Hill (Part One)

_You Who I Called Brother_

_Chapter Two: Part One: The City on the Hill_

sorry about the wait. Vaysh was preparing for a con recently and it put us back about a week, and then I picked up more hours at work and then I ran out of excuses. In any case, this chapter comes to you in two parts, the reason for which will become apparent once you hit part two.

* * *

_In Transit from Massachusetts_

_Three Years After the Treaty_

Starting travel in the camper was a little uneasy that night. Well okay yes, it was uneasy most nights for one reason or another—political disputes between passengers, irritability born of gnawing hunger, last-minute squealing escapes from localized dictatorships, and—at least for Conrad—the looming sensation of yet another "adventure" on the horizon, even if the night itself was comparatively non-lethal. But all typical difficulty aside, tonight was about as friendly and easy going as an Italian bar full of Russians.

God he was glad to be in the driver's cabin, out of the thick of the mood.

He looked aside, a quick glance which was about as much as he could spare considering the state of roads around here. Worth had his feet kicked up on the dashboard—typical—fiddling with a rubix cube in his lap. Little red and blue flashes of color swirled in the pinprick of Conrad's peripheral vision.

"Where the hell did you pick that up?" Conrad asked, mildly, looking back to the road.

"Yer mum's attic," Worth answered, absently.

A little twinge of something like a migraine of the bones flared up inside Conrad—grief, and resentment—and then settled down into cool ashes. Every time it hurt a little bit less. A little bit.

"Maybe you should pass that back to somebody with a higher IQ," Conrad sniped, because less hurt was still hurt. "Your _brother in law_ might fancy a spin."

"Ain't my goddamn nothin' in law," Worth replied. "Sides, I think I got it worked out. Magic fingers 'n all."

"Uhuh. They don't look too special to me."

"I reckon I'll take that comment with grace on account'a you not havin' a lot of culture in the realm 'o talented fingers," Worth noted with a pointed leer.

Conrad swallowed faintly, and the straightened his shoulders against the seat. "Well, I didn't hear you complaining."

"Sugar," the doctor said with a bark of a laugh, "if I stopped ter complain we wouldn'a got so much as a shoe off 'fore some loudmouthed bastard broke it up."

Conrad felt his face crumple so deeply that a thick finger of pain pushed through his skin. Shit, he thought he'd done okay. Maybe not—maybe not _great_, or anything, but. He thought he'd been alright. _Shit_. Maybe he was even more terrible than he thought.

And for the hundredth time, he thought to himself, _maybe this was a really stupid idea._

Out the corner of his eye, he caught Worth looking up from his puzzle, the twitching pulse of his long fingers stilling on the plastic. He could feel the doctor staring at him, like an uneasy vibration in the hairs along his neck, in a way that he never could when he was alive.

"Ya fuck fine."

The RV swerved sideways, and Conrad had to snap the wheel back to keep on the road. Completely not his fault, mind you. Must have been a rock.

"I'm sorry, _what?"_

"I mean I ain't complainin' yet, Christ, keep yer habit on. 'Course, we ain't had five unin'nerupted minutes since February so that don't say much."

And then Worth nodded a little bit, like he'd said his piece and didn't plan on sticking around for an encore, and dropped his attention back down to the puzzle in his lap.

"Just don't yank my dick off an' we won't have no trouble," Worth added, like an afterthought.

Somewhere behind them, Hanna was humming. Conrad smiled a little bit, on the side of his mouth that no one in the cabin could have seen. That had been… almost decent.

Ten minutes later, the rubix cube sat solved on the boot-scuffed dashboard.

-A-

Hanna tossed the weathered road map across the floor, which was the only place that would accommodate that much paper as well as that many ambivalent observers. Worth and Conrad had relocated to the booth, once Conrad had successfully managed to find a parking space for them off the side of a little-known crackling road. It had been their third attempt. The first two involved bandits and feral dogs, respectively.

"Here," Hanna said, pressing one faintly scarred fingertip to the eastern region of the county, "is where we are. And here is where we need to be."

His finger hovered over tiny lettering that designated that particular centimeter of ink "Golgotha". Conrad experienced a distinct and instinctual emotion that can best described as He Did Not Like Where This Was Going. This was a feeling he had become horribly familiar with, and so the recognition was immediate, and at least a little bit comforting. If you're going to be going into mad disastrous misadventures, he thought, you should at least know that you should be worrying.

"And what's there?" Liv Worth asked, in a tone that pointedly did not mention how no one had consulted her about their destination.

"Well," Hanna answered, "mostly it's surviving human civilization, but that's not why we're going. They've got a big supernatural population, see, sort of an enclave—anyhow, they're reliable kinda guys, and they've got an ear to the ground. I figure if anybody knows where your redcaps are hiding out, they're probably the ones! I mean, lots of moonlighters know, but most of the one who know won't talk to us."

Liv's face didn't twitch. "Why didn't you just ask me?"

Hanna scrunched up his nose in a way that made him look like a shortsighed, very ginger rabbit. "Uuuuh _do _you know? That would be kind of weird, you knowing, since, like—who would tell you?"

Liv blinked, like a statue might blink if statues did that sort of thing. "Uhuh," she said, at last. "I don't know, actually. I just wondered why you hadn't tried to ask."

"Well, glad that's cleared up!" Hanna said, clapping his hands together. "Next stop Golgotha! Then all we got to do is skip on over to the Dark Lord's Fortress and scope out the draw bridge, and next thing you know the cavalry'll be comin' round the mountain!"

Conrad rubbed at his forehead. "Your allusions give me headaches, Hanna."

The magician gave him a sly look from under a frizz of badly combed orange hair. "Like the headache you gave that highwayman?"

The vampire felt his cheeks go faintly purple with brackish undead blood. "Look, we are not sitting down here to talk about that."

"Talk about what?" Virgil interjected, entering the conversation for the first time—he had been putting the kid back to bed while they formulated their off kilter huddle. Now, with the door to the back room neatly closed, he had been sucked into the gravity of the conversation with a wary sort of interest.

"How Conrad took out a bandit with 'is face," Worth answered around a cigarette, predictably treacherous, the mercenary bastard. "Ya missed it stayin' back here with the kid. Damn shame. Real acrobatical feat, it was."

Conrad sunk down in the booth, which took some effort because the way he was sitting had his back to empty space. Still had had plenty of practice with slumping sullenly, and he knew when it was called for.

"I _did_ mean to hit him," he pointed out, for all the good it could do him.

Liv gave him a narrow look. "You mean you bit him? I did see that."

"Aw nah," Doc Worth said, Cheshire grin peeling up his stupid lips, "that would be too _humdrum_ fer Xena here. Whereas some vamps like to take it all borin' an' traditional, our Connie is a real innovator if yanno what I mean."

"_Luce_," his sister said.

"I suppose it was something of a lateral headbutt," Oceano interjected thoughtfully. "Since the head did come into contact with—"

"_Look_ are we gonna talk about my acrobatic inability or are we going to talk about _the thing we sat down to talk about?"_

Hanna tamped down a soul-crushingly patronizing grin, but obliged. His fingers traced a series of blue veins across the roadmap, significant stretches of highway here and there but mostly smaller roads through abandoned towns. They travelled this part of the world with such frequency that they hardly needed Hanna's pink splotches of highlighter to tell them where human life remained—or where it rather didn't.

"I'd say we go this way," Hanna said, "but we'll see if some of the roads have gone down since the last time we passed through. Since there's a drought on I don't think we gotta worry about downed bridges, but fallen trees or, uh, more bandits, I guess? Could still be a problem."

Conrad looked over the map. Veins and capillaries of roadwork blossomed in the back of his head, potholes here and twists there. "Okay," he said, although it wasn't an agreement so much as brief resolution.

Hanna smiled. Even when it didn't match up with the path he had picked out, he never complained about Conrad's choice of route. Conrad always got them where they needed to go. It was a nice smile, and Conrad went a little bit mumbly about the edges as he quickly shuffled the map closed. He never really got used to Hanna's brazen, offhanded confidence in him.

"Alright," Conrad coughed, "let's get moving then. Humans should get some sleep while they can, we'll be in town by morning. Everybody in the backroom is in for an early wake up call 'cos I'm not toasting my elbows up here just so you can sleep in till six."

"Yessir mister sergeant sir," Doc Worth said, with a lazy sort of salute. He then proceeded to collapse backwards across the vinyl seat of the booth and stare up at the ceiling, smoking faintly, as if there wasn't a thing in the world more interesting than the damn cracks in the foam. Conrad gave his bent, flopped out legs a withering look.

He was like a frog with all that bloody leg on him. Maybe a grasshopper. Something green and bothersome anyway.

Best you could do was ignore him, probably. Time and experience had provided Conrad with a better sense of when he was being intentionally riled up, but the urge to get stomping mad unfortunately never stopped.

Conrad beat a stiff retreat to the driver's seat before he could get suckered into an argument more embarrassing than the previous one. The younger Worth still thought of him as a soulless creature of the night, and while that was far from complimentary it was still, at least, better than left-footed-hipster-washout.

Across the pitted hood of the RV, silver moonlight warped itself into long, thin lines. The unearthly engine hummed to life like something that lives goodnaturedly but with long sharp teeth in the bottom of a cave. There was the clutch, and they were gone.

After a moment of rumbling silence, there was a flutter of white and blond in the passenger seat, which judging from the smell—sweat and hunger and half-familiar _something_ like ozone—wasn't Doc Worth. Conrad glanced over as they took a corner, and found himself looking at the grimly forward-facing silhouette of Olivia Worth.

Conrad smelled a rat. Figuratively speaking. Worth had been pretty blatant about not leaving the two of them alone together since the argument about driver's privileges in Salem. No way he hadn't noticed where his sister was now.

She didn't say anything. Conrad pressed his lips together, discomfited. _Inlaws_, observed some treacherous but admittedly accurate part of his mind. Death might have been the great equalizer for humans, but apparently inlaws were the common bane of even immortal existences.

Olivia's heart beat stuttered faintly in the half-silence. There was bickering and shuffling from the room behind them, but the youngest Worth's thin-lipped stillness was like a muffler on the world outside of the cockpit. Conrad reached towards the cassette player and then faltered in mid-air, fingers twitching nervously before snapping back to sit on the wheel. Just as well, probably. Hanna had left in his _Queen_ cassette and that was not at all what he needed at the moment.

"So…" he started. Be civil. The last thing you want to do is spend four hours in an enclosed space with an enraged woman. Never mind that she's the most blatantly hostile person to walk through this vehicle since they frog-marched a Canadian latch boss into the booth last summer, things can always… get worse…

Liv had turned the daunting weight of her attention to him. It was indeed daunting.

"…Nice night," he finished weakly.

She snorted.

Conrad screwed up his face. "I'm just trying to make conversation," he snapped, fingers flexing on the worn leather of the steering wheel.

"I'm not here to converse," Liv replied in what she probably thought was neutral tone. There was a hiss in the back of it.

"No," he replied, hearing a creaking complaint from the wheel trapped in his grip, "I suppose that you're not. You're here to send us hurtling headfirst into some new adventure. Thank you _ever_ so much. The peace and quiet and safety was getting all so boring."

Well. That hadn't really been what he had intended to say. Apparently there was just something about a Worth that turned on the charm.

"Blame Luce," she snapped, and even if Conrad should have technically been able snap her in two quite easily, the psychic weight behind her stare was enough to make him second guess himself on that one.

"Oh, believe me, that has _never_ been a problem. He's usually responsible for half of my misery."

"And the other half?"

"Try the ginger."

She hummed and Conrad briefly thought that might be the end of the conversation, until she spoke again. "I guess the more things change."

"Beg your pardon?"

"It's a sayin'. The more things change, the more they stay the same. He was always a pain in the ass."

"Which one, the matchstick or the scarecrow?"

She snorted again, but, oh God help him, Conrad knew enough Worthspeak to recognize this particular snort as one of amusement. "Never met the redhead before."

"Oh. Well." And then, blinking with surprise. "Never?"

"Luce isn't the sort to keep in contact. Not unless he wants to."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Really? Maybe now that he's... one of you, maybe that's different."

"One of us, yes," he allowed himself a brief eye roll and a sigh. "He's only been _one of us_ for a few months. I've had the grave misfortune of knowing him for years."

"Years?"

"Oh. _Yes_. Years. Feels like fucking decades."

From the back he ignored the call of "Marriage'll do that ter ya" and continued.

"I, er, that's to say, Hanna made me meet Worth, er, Luce. Ugh, that's odd, I'm just going to stick with Worth if that's alright? Yes, good. Well, Hanna tried to help me with a bat problem and instead, I died and he shoved a filthy hand full of blood into my mouth to bring me back."

"It wasn't a fistful!" Helpful Hanna piped up from somewhere behind Olivia's seat. "See, Daisuke was being a badass, chasing after Adelaide and wham! Pow! Boff! They get in this big hardcore show down. And Daisuke loses an arm, sorry about that, bro, and takes my hammer, it's a cool hammer, Miss Olivia, I should totally show you sometime, glows when orcs are around and other things, and, anyway! Totally sinks it into her, ka-chunk! Sploosh! Blood gets all up on it, right? And so she's all 'fuck this, I'm outta here' 'cause Daisuke is so cool, and I get the hammer and I wipe some blood from it and stick it in Conman's mouth, so it was like a droplet or something? Yeah, but then he punched me so I knew he was cool and we took him to see the Doc and then stuff happened and now here we are!"

"I see." Without thinking, Conrad tongued the stunted fang. "That explains some things, I suppose."

Liv shoots him a cool look, but there something speculative in the corners of it. Conrad thinks about secrets, and how there really aren't as many as she seems to think. "So you weren't always..."

"No," he says, shortly. "And I clearly never asked to be one. It just...happened to me. Like cancer happens to you. Or scars happen, or any other number of bodily changes due to outside forces beyond our control. Like _Worth_ happens, I suppose. Constant harassment. You'd think he spent all his spare time, of which I'm sure he had plenty, sitting around thinking of new ways to insult me. I couldn't even go to my favorite coffee shops, anymore, he would find me like some deranged and diseased homing pigeon."

"Oi. I ain't diseased. An' I ain't a pigeon. At least gimme cassowary or somethin' more appropriate."

"A _what_?"

Olivia waved a hand in the air. God they were unnervingly similar. "Flightless bird in Australia. Like an ostrich, but meaner and deadlier."

"Ah. Are they also mangy and unkempt?"

"Not so much. A big ball of feathers with a mean face and scraggly legs."

"Then, yes, Worth. You tracked me down like a deranged cassowary."

"Awright."

"For God's sake, it's _not a compliment_. You _shouldn't accept it_."

But it was Worth, so, of fucking course, he did. There was a defiantly contented hum from somewhere behind them, and then the conversation blossomed outward to include more voices, bigger and brighter like a moonflower unfolding in the twilight.

Tensions lifted a bit after that. Conrad could still feel the speculative gaze of their half-feral refugee in the passenger seat, like a faint static over his skin, but her tapping nails were silent and the darkness was familiar outside the hull of the camper, and in the heart of it there was Hanna's rattling laughter like a second engine chugging along underneath them. The evening unrolled ahead.

-A-

Golgotha was an old town, situated on the side of a yawning lake fed by a mostly dammed river. Conrad could feel the oldness in the dirt, although when he tried to explain the sensation to Worth he only got a blank look for his trouble. All dirt's old, the doctor had told him, that's the nature of dirt, so to speak.

Conrad eyed the ground with vague wariness for a while after that. It wasn't so much that the ground was _geologically_ older or anything, it just felt… lived in. Experienced. Like it had learned a thing or two over the years. Conrad was uncomfortably aware that he was personifying topsoil and didn't quite know what to do about it except try really hard not to _think_ about doing it.

The houses in the town were mostly wood, although at the center of everything it looked like they were constructing something sizable out of salvaged brick, with oddly shaped holes for windows. Well, presumably windows, anyway. The foundations were awfully deep.

In the way of rural communities, it had picked up most of the survivors in a ten mile radius like a magnet surrounded by iron fillings and grown outward, suddenly and organically, when room at the center had run out. Businesses were converted to houses. Parks were converted to farms. The one clinic—the biggest for ten miles in any direction, and doubtlessly the source of that magnetic field—had been amended with trailers and ports, and the neighboring buildings had been gutted, refitted, and repurposed to expand the complex. Stretching out behind it was the only field in the area that hadn't been planted with seeds of some kind; it covered that particular type of crop that would never grow fruit.

Conrad shivered when they passed it. Apparently there hadn't been resources enough during the dying time to work out markers—instead of headstones, there was a lone wooden sign at the front of it bearing a rough accounting of all the dead inside.

He had parked the camper in an unruly apple orchard and promptly kicked out all of the human inhabitants, just in time to catch the first faint rays of purplish dawn at the rim of the world. He was deeply tired, and sleepily resentful of the hubbub tomorrow would undoubtedly bring. Either Worth felt the same, or was just sufficiently put out by having his sister wandering around nearby, because all he did in that early hour of morning was throw an arm over Conrad's shoulder and let out one long, thoughtful breath.

It was weird, but not bad-weird. And honestly, there was so little in Conrad's unlife that wasn't bad-weird these days, he couldn't find it in himself to complain.

-A-

The seven of them, one big unwieldy organism with more legs than nature had known how to account for, sat down in Golgotha's only open bar at about seven in the evening, with Conrad fresh from what had actually been a pretty relaxing day's coma. He felt like he could almost probably handle whatever was coming at them this evening. Maybe. When he had finally gotten up and joined the group, Worth and... the other Worth, he supposed, were engaged in a snarling argument that was mostly pointed silence, and the barometric pressure for about a block all around them felt deeply ominous. They had fallen quiet- quiet_er_ anyways- when Conrad approached.

He was determined not to ask. No matter how much the blatant secret keeping drove him up the wall.

Here and now they were arranged around a massive table at the back of Golgotha's only open bar. More of a tavern really, except that when they had asked about ordering some kind of food, they had been quietly informed that there was not enough surplus food in the town right now to stock any kind of restaurant, even the tavernish kind.

In the corner, and old man with bloated features smoked away in the shadows. Conrad knew he had reached a deeply weird and unfixable place in his personal development when the smell of tobacco smoke made him feel easier in his seat.

Hanna had given them a rather quick run down of who and what to expect in Golgotha shortly after the wheels of the camper had begun churning up dust on the main thoroughfare through the town. Humans were here, of course, but so were a few other assorted beings, the largest group of which happened to be the Vodnici.

The Vodnici, according to the walking supernatural encyclopedia, lived primarily in Golgotha's sizable lake. However, the cooler evenings and the comparative bustle of a small town conspired to bring them up out of the water on any given night. They were fishmongers by trade, and occasionally collectors of the rare and strange- powerful objects had a habit of finding their ways down to the murky riverbeds where open-current dwellings had been carved out from underneath wild roots. They weren't particularly good guardsmen of their treasures, though, and the general obscurity of their underwater houses was about the only thing standing between any given hedgewitch and unimaginable power.

Fortunately for the humans, they were more or less friendly and harmless. A treaty of sorts existed between the Vodnici of Golgotha and the human inhabitants, wherein the humans provided the Vodnici with tobacco from the fields, and the Vodnici, in turn, provided them with fish and safe waters. But with the drought that had been plaguing the East, tobacco and other consumable vegetation had withered down to a few scraggly plants stubbornly holding on to life, and the lake's fish were dwindling with the increased demand. It went without saying that the tensions between the two groups had been rising. Lucky them. They were always seeming to roll into great situations like this all the time.

Across the table, Caoimhe sipped tea from a mug, keeping her honey colored eyes hidden beneath her dark eyelashes. She would have made for a good art model with her pale skin and delicate features. The goat legs, though, well, they could possibly pass for artistic license, likely considered to be a symbolic gesture of the animal within, or the animalistic lustful desires of man. A little embarrassing to think about that one, actually, since she'd only ever been very sensible to Conrad's knowledge and not exactly of the orgiastic persuasion.

Her cheeks _were_ pink, though, and it took Conrad a few minutes into the group conversation to realize it was less from the warmth of the tea in her hands and the general heat in the town tavern, and more from some growingly apparent attraction to Virgil.

Good luck with that one, he thought, barely stifling a snort. If he knew his Worths and, God help him, he feared he did, Caoimhe would get her face bitten off before she knew what happened.

Potentially literally, actually.

His Worth and, oh, God, that was another thing he wasn't quite used to, was giving him a sidelong look. Either he hadn't held back the snort as well as he'd thought, or, er, had he just been caught not paying attention to the conversation? From Worth's quick glance at Hanna and then back to Conrad, well, fuck. Clearly he had missed something, and it showed. Usually he was the one complaining about the quack not paying attention and now here he was okay, no. No point in thinking on that any longer, he really ought to just get back to listening.

"I mean, it's bad all over but, yeah, we really need to figure out a fix to your situation." A sharpie marker was wiggling in Hanna's right hand as the rune mage clearly took whatever the situation was to heart.

"Yes but, the problem here is that we're nearly out of reserves. If things go on this way, this winter," Caoimhe gave another eyefluttering, lip nibbling look towards Virgil, then continued with a sigh, "would probably be our last. I don't know if I'm willing to wait around to see. It might be good to, um, you know. Go off somewhere else?"

"Ain't many places ter go," Worth replied, and Conrad was surprised he was paying so much attention. He wasn't sure if he should be proud or if he ought to squash that rising feeling like an ant under boot. Then again, Worth was mostly staring at Hanna, so Conrad turned his attention there as well.

Conrad knew the look on Hanna's face. Shit. He was going to do something. Something that would involve all of them. Someone ought to say something before anything got out of hand.

"Well we're just passing through ourselves," Conrad said, perhaps a bit louder than necessary. "We were hoping you could help us figure out where to find, er, sorry, what exactly are we finding again?"

"Fuck's yer mind at?" Scowling, Worth's fingertips rapped themselves on the worn table top. "Welcome ter the convo, Connie. Liv here's gone an' lost her damn mind, decidin' ter take on a good friend'a ours."

"Good friend?" Wait, did they _have_ those? Oh. Oh. He felt his stomach sink as his hand rose to pinch the bridge of his nose. They didn't have friends, but they sure had enemies a plenty. "Fucking wonderful. Who?"

"Good ol' pumpkin tosser."

"You _can't_ be serious."

Conrad looked around. Apparently they were serious. Fucking wonderful.

"Don't bother me none," Worth said, and Conrad noticed the slight roll of Worth's shoulder as the man spoke, "I'd like ter see 'im again."

"Oh for fuck's sake. Don't you think we have more important things to do than to go on some stupid revenge kick?"

"Yeah," Hanna jumped in, quick as an ambush, "like, we totally gotta figure a solution to this drought first."

Ugh, why did Conrad open his mouth? To help, of course. Fuck his miserable life.

"We've exhausted all our options here. Well," Caoihme sighed again, cheeks still ruddy and Conrad realized she had somehow quietly moved her chair closer to Virgil. _Please don't murder her_, he mentally pleaded. _I don't want to go through another murder trial_.

Hanna's freckled nose wriggled under his thick rimmed glasses, Sharpie marker still moving furiously in his grip. "Ugh, yeah I mean, like, you guys already prayed to all the right deities and you set out offerings and held harvest fertility festivals and like, man, the only thing you haven't done is like, human sacrifice."

Liv made a face only a hairbreadth from a snarl. "Don't be flippant," she snapped.

It was a little startling to realize, in the moment of that snap, how very little she knew Hanna. Of course, she hadn't been with them but a couple days so it shouldn't have surprised him, but- the look on Hanna's face, like he'd been slapped and was trying to pretend it hadn't hurt. Conrad winced in sympathy.

It was Virgil, surprisingly, who seemed to step in as peacekeeper, placing a hand on Olivia's narrow thigh like he could suck out poison there, smiling at her gently. Caoihme noticed the affectionate gesture and immediately deflated. Worth noticed the affectionate gesture as well, but rather than deflate, his hand clawed the air above his hip holster.

Hanna either didn't notice the change across the table, or just couldn't bring himself down from that moral panic. "I wasn't!" he said in a rush, fingers practically vibrating around the marker in his hand. "I wasn't, really! There's a lot of really old magic- wild magic, you know- people used to work with human sacrifices. Nasty stuff but, I guess, effective probably? Of course in a nice town like this they wouldn't try it-"

Hanna seemed to realize the misstep he'd taken just as the words left his mouth, but by then he couldn't swallow them back down. There was a zing, that was the best way Conrad could come to describe the feeling in the room. Like the tension of a bowstring suddenly being released. Eyes were upon them, dozens, he didn't have to look to sense it, and the hollow dread that had been growing in his stomach began to gnaw at him like an ulcer.

Hanna picked up on it immediately, his earnest, thoughtful visage cringing back, blue eyes going wide with horror. "No. No, that is not what I meant!"

But it was too late, the crowd's murmurs had begun.

"But if...it would work. It's like you said," Caiohme pressed, losing much of the earlier shyness that had kept her eyes downcast, "then that may be the only hope for this town. They can't keep on like this much longer. If the drought doesn't break in the next few weeks," she took a breath, then released it slowly, shaking her head.

"How many?" one man in the back asked, a chant that was picked up, spreading across the room like a chorus of angry birds cawing and pecking.

"I...I don't know. Please."

Though he wasn't often taken with protective urges around Hanna, the pure sickness on his face made Conrad want to run off with the rune mage, over his shoulder if necessary. Take him somewhere else, keep him from having to go through with this thing that might save a town.

Instead, it was Worth who put a hand on Hanna's shoulder, even as the redhead covered his mouth with his hand, eyes squeezed shut. "How many, Hanna?"

"One..." shoulders slumping, he whispered a reply, "One of the Air and... one of the Sea. And then what you wish to be shall be."

"What the hell does that even mean?" Olivia's face was contorting, her gaze jumping from her brother to Hanna and back.

Small, fragile hands wrung themselves together as Caiohme smiled nervously at the people around. "I owe the people here a debt. They did not have to take me in, especially knowing they were taking a risk in doing so. But they did. And I am forever grateful. If I can do something to repay them," her breath caught and her back straightened, hands no longer twining around one another, her hands now clutched at each other. "Hanna Falk Cross. If you will help these people, I will give you the information you need to find the Horseman. If you will not help these people, then, I am afraid I cannot help you."

"You're asking me to-"

"I know what I am asking," and from the look on her face, she certainly thought that she knew, but she didn't. Even Conrad didn't really know. Only Worth and whatever-his-name-was-tonight knew. "I'm sorry, Hanna, but...but this is the price for your information. The price is saving these people. Is it so bad to ask that you be their hero?"

Worth's disgusted snort was far politer response than the one Conrad had burning on the tip of his tongue.

"Volunteers," Hanna managed, though he still looked nauseous. "I'm not... they have to volunteer, and they have to have lived a long life. No children."

Hanna would be bloodying his hands for information just so he could help others spill blood in vengeance. Conrad wasn't sure who he was more furious with at that moment - Olivia, for dragging them out here and triggering these events, or Worth for going along with it.

(TBC)


	4. The City on the Hill (Part Two)

_You Who I Called Brother_

_Chapter 2: Part Two: The City on The Hill_

* * *

_Golgotha, Upstate New York_

_Nearly Three Years After_

For a number of hours, I could not find Hanna anywhere. In the city's library, the crudely constructed shelf in the very back had been left in a state of sullen disarray, leather-bound and stitch-bound spines bent haphazardly over the ground. In Greased Lightning, the floor panels were torn up to expose catches of morally-dubious literature. There was still water floating uneasily in the sink, glowing faintly. In the waterlogged construction sites there were no footprints dug into the ground with tiny alien faces from whimsically shaped rubber soles.

Conrad had no better luck, for all that his nervous energy made him move faster than I could have. The good doctor was no help. He contented himself with brooding raucously in the tavern, picking fights and generally making a nuisance of himself in the company of his sister, who was only somewhat better behaved. Worth had always taken a stubborn sort of tough love approach to Hanna's tenderheartedness, as if he could callous up a person's heart by pointedly refusing to sympathize. So while his carousing that night was something of a grimace couched in a grin, at least I could understand. His sister, on the other hand... I still do not fully understand her actions that night.

Regardless, I carried on my search.

When I found Hanna, he was seated by himself at the edge of the natural waterline. His feet were hanging over the edge, elbows on his knees, face in his hands. A trail of smoke drifted from one hand, indicating he was holding a cigarette - mostly likely long forgotten. I watched him, thin shoulders moving steadily as he breathed, dragonflies buzzing around his head.

No one was around that I could see. It was simply Hanna and what remained of the water, and I.

"Hanna," I said, "please be careful with the cigarette."

He cringed into himself, a movement similar to his protestations when I would turn on a light and remind him he had work at Target that morning. Without a blanket or pillow, he could not hide from me, and he lifted his head with a smile.

"Hey, sorry. Precious resources, shouldn't be wasteful, totally dig it." Hanna took breath through the cigarette then, eyes clouding as he hid somewhere within his own mind.

I stood beside him. The water had receded enough that even at the natural edge, there were still several feet of dry earth separating us from the lake. "You are upset." I said.

Another breath of smoke slipped between his lips before he replied. "Yeah."

"This was not your choice," I reminded him, "this was a choice that was made willingly."

"It's still bullshit."

"It may be, but they have made the choice for bullshit."

I had hoped he would laugh at that. I seldom used vulgar language, and it often met with amusement from my charge. Instead, he used the heels of his shoes to scratch up dust from the withered earth below us. "I just..." he began, spitting out words like the sooty backfire of a long neglected car.

"You want to find another way."

"Yeah. I mean. There's always another way, right?" Hanna looked up at me, as if I had the answers.

I did not. There was a twinging of something behind my breastbone as I saw the hurt on his face - hurt, pain, things I had taken it upon myself to prevent. I had failed him. But perhaps there was a way to ease some of his other pains. "Hanna, if I may, I would like to sit vigil with the Vodnik."

He blinked, cigarette drooping dangerously from the corner of his mouth. "Huhwha?"

Hands clasped behind my back, I inclined my head. "I would like to do this."

"I...guess okay? You totally can, I don't mean that—y'know, that you can't or aren't allowed or anything like that, and you would totally make a super boss hang out buddy, I can attest to that amen holy trinity with halos on top but...I guess I'm just surprised." As the cigarette predictably fell from his mouth, I picked it up from his lap before it could singe through his clothing, placing it back to his lips. "Whoops, sorry. Thanks."

I inclined my head again. "I believe that counts as a glowing endorsement. Please rest and gather your strength for later. I will sit with the Vodnik in your stead."

He bit the end of the cigarette between his teeth as he smiled, the motion deepening the lines etched across his face. Few people noticed them, how they had elongated over the years. Even I often forgot about them. But, I often forgot many things.

Hanna had mentioned a movie once, about a detective searching for clues about his wife. He would write notes and get tattoos to remind him of what had transpired. I had said it was a nice idea, but I doubted we had enough post-its and day planners to get me by. He had laughed then. I had smiled at him, though I did not understand the humor he saw in my statement.

Would he laugh, I wondered, if I found a way to tattoo one of his paper cranes into my skin? It might be nice to have a mark among all the stitches and restitches that I picked out for myself.

-A-

In the latest hours of the evening, after Hanna had fallen resentfully into a restless kind of sleep, I ventured back out into the town to think. I had long had this habit of wandering while Hanna slept, although when I began it there was only the blocks around our apartment to explore. Golgotha had a faint sort of beauty to it, although it was unseasonably brown and probably had been equally ramshackle before as after the collapse of society. In the apple orchard, a few stubborn blossoms were attempting to swell.

Doc Worth had allowed himself to be subdued somewhat by Conrad, who was now looking for something to occupy himself with and had apparently decided that his friend's antics were under his jurisdiction. I think perhaps the doctor was grateful for the excuse to relent. His sister lingered in the tavern, although her companion and the child (whose child she was, I still wondered) had retired to the town's inn hours before.

"Find Cross?" Olivia asked me, over the lip of the drink she had been nursing. There was a certain amount of irony in the ease with which you could get a hold of alcohol in this town, and the difficulty with which water was coming lately. "He alright?"

"Yes," I answered. "He is as alright as he can be, considering the situation."

Olivia frowned faintly and took another sip. "Don't see what he's so riled up about. He's a mage or whatever, right? He does stuff like this all the time. So some hillbilly kicks it, what's he care?"

I felt the edges of my lips turn down. "You heard him when he was speaking earlier, Ms. Worth. This is not magic any magician takes on lightly. It is very old, and very unusual."

"So, what, he's worried he's gonna have his magician card revoked?"

"That's not how it works. Hanna is..." I paused, uncertain of how to explain this to an outsider. While I at one time had come into Hanna's life a stranger, he had seemed almost immediately familiar to me, like an old friend whose habits I had only needed to remind myself of. "Hanna is a man who cares very deeply about everything. It's in his nature to take responsibility for other people's lives. If some hillbilly kicks it, as you say, and Hanna is in a one hundred mile radius of the event, he'll be convinced that it's somehow his fault. I have seen him offer amnesty to villains and second chances to traitors."

Olivia's lip curled unpleasantly, and her whole thin face became much less the striking handsome beauty it had been. "Guess the kid knows the value of a debt, huh?"

I paused for a moment, uncertain that I had heard correctly. But the curl of Olivia Worth's lip said more, even, than the dismissive sizzle of her words. "You misunderstand me," I ventured, somewhat at a loss.

"Oh no, I hear what you're saying," she replied. "I'm just not biting. Ya wanna sell me on a guy with that kind of clout handing out free favors? Peddle the antiques road show somewhere else, I've been round this block before. The things they told me- the things I heard about him, I mean, what he's done... well. How many people died in Florida, anyhow? His conscience sure didn't pull any punches there."

"...Ms. Worth," I said, after a moment, "I do not anger easily by any means, but if you won't stop that right now, we will all find out exactly what I am like when angered."

Brief, enflamed silence filled our corner of the tavern for a long time. Olivia's hand tightened on her glass, but her expression was muted, and appraising.

"I don't reckon anybody wants to see that," she said at last, and took a drink of her whiskey. It seemed- as far as I could guess- like a sort of apology. "Glad he's alright, anyway."

"Thank you. I didn't expect you to take an interest, honestly."

Olivia shrugged. "He's my ride, more or less," she admitted. "And if I want that horse-fucker's head on a platter, I'm gonna need that firepower, right?"

"Is that what we're here to do?" I asked. "That wasn't quite how you pitched it earlier."

The shift away from me was subtle, but not as subtle as she would have liked to think. There were a great many things about Olivia Worth that I did not understand, then, but one thing was becoming slowly more clear.

"I think," I said, after some consideration, "that out of all the people embarking on this journey, you've misjudged who is most ruthless among us. You might try to keep in mind that we're all helping you for no actual benefit to ourselves, if you can conceive of giving people like myself that much credit."

Olivia squinted at me, and I am fairly certain it wasn't the liquor that caused it "Are you calling me a racist?"

"No," I replied, "though I might have likened you to one."

-A-

As the sun drifted above the green wall of distant forest, I sat with the Vodnik, whom I came to know as Bohumir. We were settled into in a tent that had been pitched on a downward slant. I sat in a chair and Bohumir sat on a stool within a large metal tub. It is inelegant to say, but as the day's sun beat down upon him and he stayed out of the water, he would slowly dissipate, leaking his vital fluids. They would be instrumental in the magic that was to be worked later.

I found him pleasant, and we spoke at length regarding what memories I still retained. I told him of our travels, of the paths we had wandered, the roads that had led us to his home. He listened as sweat trickled from his forehead and his face gradually began to dry. His hair was like seaweed, and as time passed, the vibrant greens and blues faded, turning brown, and eventually to dust. I found it interesting that the clothing he wore dried out so quickly despite his moist body, and, I am somewhat ashamed to admit, as he dried, I became more comfortable in his presence.

I learned from Bohumir during our hours together, that Vodnici in general aren't particularly interested in the fiction of mankind. They don't write their own fiction either - no great Vodnici novels exist in the world, which is not entirely because an amphibious lifestyle lends itself poorly to the collection of books. Their interests lie, instead, in what is true, and what is believed.

When I finished my tale the sun was high overhead and the Vodnik was panting slightly. I found myself at a loss.

"Can I do something for you?"

"No, no, you have done much already in your time with me," he replied with an old smile.

"I have done nothing," I stated.

"You keep me company, you tell me stories. You give me your time."

I thought, then, to blink. "I have much time."

"I thought the same until last night," he said, and though he laughed, it did not sound joyous. "The gift of time is one of the greatest that we have, for it is limited to us all."

I did not fully understand what he meant, but I nodded, nonetheless. "Can I give you anything other than my time?"

He breathed, long and deep, joints creaking as he slumped slightly forward. "I would like more stories."

"I am afraid I have no more."

"What of your friends?"

"Hanna is preparing for the rites tonight, and, I hope, resting. Worth and Conrad, being vampiric, are both asleep." I inclined my head. "I can fetch Conrad or Worth upon sunset, if you desire."

"You said...there were others, didn't you?"

I gave pause to consider before agreeing.

"I think," he said with another parched smile, "that I would like to meet the sister of your doctor."

"I will ask." I stood then, and slipped out the front of the tent. Two additional guards were seated just outside, and jumped to their feet with alarm when they saw me.

"Is he-"

I held a hand up. "He remains committed to his cause. He would like another to sit with him."

They looked at each other, squinting in the glare of the sun. "I guess...that's reasonable," one said. "I take it you want one of us to fetch them."

"Yes. The tall, blonde woman who arrived with us. He would like to speak with her. Please let her know that she has been requested."

"Where is she?"

I looked to the sky, at the yellow spot, mercilessly searing away at the land and the people and the creatures below. While I understood that the sun was a star, was merely doing that which it was designed to do by providing heat and light to the planet, I felt some irrational anger with it. The rays had led to much suffering, and a new set of deaths that Hanna would carry the weight of upon his back.

I realized that I had not replied when one of the guards cleared their throat, and my gaze shifted back down to the two of them. I had some difficulty recalling why they were there, why I was there. Hanna had said that happened to him sometimes. He would get up to fetch something and forget what he was getting. Returning to his original place - the couch, the kitchen, sometimes walking through the front door - would trigger his memory. I turned to look around myself for my own memory trigger, and saw the opening to the tent.

Ah. Yes. I was with the Vodnik. He had asked for Olivia. They would need to find her.

"Are there places with alcohol in the area?" I queried. "If so, that is where she is likely to be."

Again I sat with Bohumir. Time passed. The sun burned. Olivia entered the tent.

She moved with a stiff-limbed resolve, as if she were a spirit inhabiting an inanimate doll. I nodded to her, which seemed to be a passably decent welcome in the Worthish lexicon, although the minutiae of social gestures often escapes me.

Olivia stood near the closed tent flap with her arms tightly crossed over her boney chest—in the brown-tinted light one could make out the shadow depressions of sternum between her faintly sunburnt breasts.

"You need somethin'?" she inquired, neutral but wary.

I stood, and gestured between the human and vodnik inhabitants of this tent. "Olivia Worth," I said, "this is Bohumir _Nebojsa_, father of Vencslav _Golgotký._ Bohumir, this is Oliva Worth, sister of Doctor Luce Worth."

Olivia shifted her weight from one foot to another. "What's this all about?"

"I have been keeping Bohumir company," I explained, "while the morning passed. Unfortunately, I have only been cognizant of the world for perhaps fifteen years, and I have run out of stories to tell."

Something that verged upon a sneer crossed Olivia's lips. "So make up a couple. Tell somebody else's. Great, glad we had this conversation. If you need me again you can contact me through my good friend Mr. Jack Daniels."

"Olivia," I said.

"_What_?"

"Who is the human sacrifice who intends to die today?"

The focus in her blue eyes flickered, and then she replied, "Horton Smith, why?"

"If he asked you to wait with him today, would you refuse him?"

Olivia narrowed her eyes. She was not unintelligent in the least, and it was not difficult for her to deduce the direction of my hypothetical scenario. Her hand opened and closed in a fist, although she didn't appear to notice it. Perhaps she was thinking about Horton Smith, who was a grandfather of ten children. Perhaps she was thinking about the creature sitting in front of her, with his crumbling seaweed hair and his ashen skin. He was not human. He could never be mistaken for a human, even in the dark. His eyes were too round, and his features were too soft.

Perhaps she was simply thinking that whatever answer she gave me would reflect poorly on her, one way or another, and she would prefer not to be embarrassed in front of a stranger. She hung there at the edge of the room, indecisive.

"I don't have any stories to tell," she said at last, as if she had carefully assembled a particularly troublesome puzzle and found the results to her satisfaction.

"Everyone has stories to tell, Ms. Worth," Bohumir answered gently, and I admire still the quiet dignity with which he held himself, even dying inelegantly in a tub on the floor of a tent.

Olivia shifted, pulled tight like a string seconds from breaking, and then she pushed her chin up and made her way across the room with sharp, purposeful steps. "Why am I here?"

Bohumir looked at her. "Is that existential worry?"

"No," she frowned, eyebrows pinching over her nose. "I mean me. Us. Here right now with you. You have this entire village, and your own," she paused, unsure of the next word, "people. But you wanted us here. Me. We're strangers, we can't afford you any real comfort. I don't understand it so, why?"

The Vodnik took a raspy breath. "You are new. Different. I know these faces. I know their lives. Seeing them would only make it harder to know I will never see them again. So I have requested your company in lieu of theirs. You are novel, and, I hope, will help me to forget long enough to-"

Down the Vodnik's lightly peeling cheeks ran twin rivers from his eyes. They pooled together beneath his chin, dropped nearly silently on the thighs of his pants legs. One dry laugh wheezed out as he stared at the wet spots. "Oh. Look at me. Quickening my demise. Please excuse the impolite display. Let us change the subject and speak of things far away from the small pond where I grew up. Please, tell me of your pond."

"I don't have a pond," Olivia said, sitting down, pulling her legs to her body. Her arms encircled them as her chin rested upon her knees. I had seen Hanna use the same body language. I had come to understand it meant one did not want to discuss a topic—wished to be left alone.

I decided to pretend I did not know this and pressed. "I believe he means your home. Where you are from."

She was silent, and I find sullen to be as good a word as any to describe her face at that time.

"You sound different," the Vodnik stated. "You are from far away."

Olivia sighed, staring at the tent flap opening. "Australia."

"I have heard of it. It is far. Very far. What is it like?"

"Mostly desert. Not all that exciting."

"You may be surprised," he smiled, with the faint crackling rustle of lips splitting like parchment, "at what I might find exciting."

She told him, then, in small words and sentences at first, and then longer. She spoke of things that I think she may not have told anyone if we had not been so secluded, so tucked away in the quiet, holy spot of this tent on this parched Earth, with a man who was continuously dribbling himself to death like a faulty IV drip. There were things she said that I had guessed at, things about herself, her brother. I could see their similarities, the way their eyes grew hard and mouth stretched in a cruel semblance of a smile as they recounted unpleasant memories, and how their faces and shoulders softened, dipped as water beneath a boat when thoughts were pleasant.

"So the shoot was going well until we got word that everything had gone to hell back in New York. No cell reception shortly after, and telly showed us enough that we didn't want to try and go back. We made the best we could with where we were. Good people," she said, with the softness of dandelion fluff floating on wind, "Good, kind people who worked together and found a way to keep going."

"And then they came," she said, eyes like iron, teeth jagged white stones, "and fucked everything. I hid. I was a coward and I hid like one, crying like a baby. Demons aren't real, that's what they tell ya. Those things in your closet, that sound under your bed, just your imagination. Go back to sleep. Then those things are out there with Katie's intestines in their mouth and she's still screaming, fucking screaming as these things are eating her alive. Then they find me when it's all done, like they've sniffed me out. Pull me out of the closet, drag me through what's left of Katie, out through whoever else they slaughtered, and throw me down next to Virgil. He's bleeding from the head, but breathing, and then I see _Chloe_ in his arms and..."

Something flashed behind her gaze and she looked up at the Vodnik, then to me. She frowned. "Anyway, now I'm here, and I need to find them so I can end all of this and just go back to the way things were."

Bohumir nodded slowly and, for a moment, I wondered if perhaps he had fallen asleep. "The children of man have had many reasons to despise other creatures, as others have had reason to fear and hate the children of man. But we cannot seek the past. The past is the past. There is only the future. And hope."

She snorted, which I knew was Worth-speak for many inappropriate words. "Hope, huh?"

"Yes. The past is sorrow. The past is happiness. The past is hunger, satiation, blood, peace. The future, however, is, and can only be, hope."

"Yeah, well," Olivia looked uncertain, shifting slightly where she sat. "I guess I hope this works out."

"Ah, yes. I hope for that as well. Thank you, Olivia. I have appreciated your time. I understand if you wish to leave."

"It's...not so bad in here," she said, hands ghosting across the pockets of her cut off shorts. "Mind if I smoke?"

He laughed or coughed, a combination of the two, I think. "Only if you refuse to share with me one last cigarette."

Her eyes squinted as a handrolled cigarette made its way to her lips. "Bullshittin' me. Ya smoke?"

"Oh, yes. We all do. Give a pinch of tobacco to the water and we will give our thanks by seeing your ship safely to shore."

Olivia hesitated. It was understandable. Tobacco was rare and costly. She looked to me and I shook my head. "No, thank you. I do not smoke. Fire is not good for my condition."

Again her eyes narrowed, and I attempted a reassuring smile. "That was a joke. Mostly."

"Uh huh." She took a breath, then shrugged, pulling out another cigarette for the Vodnik. She passed it to him, pinched delicately between her fingers, and snatched her hand back the moment the Vodnik's shriveled fingertips caught the paper between them. It was impossible to be less indelicate with the match, however, and Olivia had no choice but to hold the match steady while Bohumir leaned his withered face in close to light his cigarette.

The three of us sat, then, for the length of the cigarettes and Bohumir's final breaths.

His body remained, reminding me of myself, a dusty husk of a form, perched upon a stool. I called for the guards, who took up the task of lying his body out on the tan dirt and straw colored grass. Hanna came for the Vodnik's liquid essence in the pail, face drawn, blanched, eyes cloudy. I offered to assist, but he waved me off without a word.

I watched him plod off towards the ritual grounds and wondered who it would be to spill the blood of the human who had agreed to be sacrificed. One of the Earth, one of the Water, each giving their lives to the air, each with hope for the future.

Beside me Olivia cleared her throat. I turned to her in the dusky light of a setting sun and she spoke. "You going to watch?"

"No," I replied. "Hanna feels it is better that I stay indoors, out of any rain that may come."

"Yeah, I reckon that sounds about right."

I found Hanna's insistence had provided me with a bit of relief. I did not want to have to watch Hanna perform such rites, to witness the deep pain and the violent, bloody vomiting. It was enough to try and soothe him through the aftermath. It seems I, too, was a coward.

I did not, however, share these thoughts. Instead, I bowed my head and made my way to the camper to sit and wait for the rains to begin.

These are the events of the evening, as they were told to me afterwards.

In a parking lot at the top of a gentle hill, Hanna drew two complex circles across the pavement in chalk. While he drew, in absolute silence, a thin solemn crowd gathered around the edges of the lot. There were a few children, who in the way natural to children, understood that something unpleasant and frightening was in the air although they had not been told what exactly it was.

I had not been with him all day, so I imagine whatever he had gathered together for the ritual had been gathered by hand—cabbage, I think he mentioned to me once, and frogs—under the tireless sun. It was not a complicated ritual. Olivia told me, later on and with some trepidation, that there was a short spell, or a prayer, or perhaps, judging from Hanna's tone, a curse. I imagine it was Sumerian. Hanna has always gravitated towards Sumerian.

I do not know when they killed Horton Smith. I only know that when Hanna went to pour his pail full of viridian fluid into the center of the first chalk circle, there was already a twin pail beside it, full of something distinctly not viridian.

The sun was low and yellow in the sky, and I remember how it hung like a specter of itself above the hills.

And then there was wind.

It came rolling over the edge of the world, a dark green wave on the crest of a far away hill. The wind chimes on the stairs of the house clattered as if they were surprised. The sun grew dimmer, whiter, distant above the earth. And I saw, though there were many other who did not see:

A shaft of light along the curve of the hills, racing towards us. A gray discoloration in its wake, on air that smelled of lightning ozone and steaming shadows. Gathering clouds, purple and green in their rolling bellies. The blue treeline shuddered and erupted with wings, stirred up from the lowest branches.

And this, I believe, was the face of the god that Hanna had called down from the mountains.

There are gods, and then there are gods, I suppose. No one has tried to taxonomically categorize them the way that the moonlight races have been. There are things with human faces that claim to be gods, and there are things like the Wild Hunter, who are eldritch but at least have form. Whatever Hanna summoned in that day in March, I would not be surprised to find that it was older than names.

Unsurprisingly, the rain did come.

It was not ordinary rain. There was a power in it, potential energy swirling in each droplet, and for years afterward the people of Golgotha would unstopper their jars of rainwater collected that day, when women in their families hoped to conceive. It was old magic, the kind that doesn't understand tightfistedness any more than it understands charity.

The rain carried on for three days, with few breaks. Thunder came deep in the hills and then went, and I eventually had to request Conrad to pick me up in the RV. Hanna came for me the short distance they couldn't drive, with a pale yellow umbrella and a half-smile on his lips.

"You are a hero," I told him, as he held up the umbrella to better accommodate my height. We set out across the slippery grass.

"Havel, bro, it's just an umbrella. No sweat."

I shook my head, though only slightly. I was wary of catching raindrops with too much motion. "You saved lives, here. Please don't forget that."

The smile faltered. "Don't," he said. "Just don't."

In the place where his hand was wrapped around the hook of the umbrella, I settled my hand there also. "If I could make the world a softer place for you, Hanna, I would do it faster than you can imagine. But it isn't a soft world, and you know it better than me. You did the best you could."

"I should have been able to come up with something else," he said, wretchedly, his hand twisting under mine.

"The fact that you would try," I told him, as gently as I could, "is what makes you a hero."

He gave me a doubtful look, but was too polite to say whatever it was he was thinking. I lifted a hand, and settled one black glove against the shape of his cheek. If I had been less discomfited by the rain, perhaps I would have removed the leather entirely.

"If you don't believe in yourself," I said, as I had said before, "believe in me, who believes in you. Therefore, through the transitive power of belief, maybe you will have a little faith."

Hanna sighed, but managed a smile. It was weak and dark around the eyes, but it was something.

"Sometimes," I added, after a moment, "there are sacrifices you have to make. The important thing is to be certain that you are sacrificing the right things."

I glanced up at the open window of the camper, where Olivia Worth was seated and watching, and knew that she had heard us.

The rain continued on, long after we had left the town.

(TBC)


	5. (Maryland)

_You Who I Called Brother_

_Interlude (2)_

Hi guys. Vaysh has been pretty goshdarn ill the last couple weeks, so we won't be getting out the next chapter for a while. To reassure you that nobody's been forgotten, here is an unusually long interlude with a couple of jerks I haven't talked about in a while!

* * *

_Maryland_

___Territory of the United States Provisional Government_

_Almost Four Years After the Collapse_

Casimiro was a nosy prick.

The sounds of cabinet doors swinging open and closed (jarring _bangs_ here and there, like he didn't even _worry_ about splitting the wood) filled the open spaces of the camper. A bottle of olive oil made a dangerous round noise as it wobbled in his wake.

Finas, on the other side of the room, coughed discreetly and glanced pointedly at Conrad's hands. The envelope he was holding had started to tear down the middle.

"Nice place ya got here," Casimiro was saying, as he flicked yet another cabinet closed with a loud thump. "Real trailer-sweet-trailer. The four of you actually _live_ in this thing?"

Conrad's pursed lips were starting to ache. "For a given definition," he managed to respond. He was pretty sure he deserved a sainthood for this.

"You and the, ah—" Casimiro paused theatrically, "—fledgling, sleep in the bedroom?"

"If I revoked my invitation right now," Conrad growled, "do you think you'd burst into flame or just fall over dead?"

"_Gentlemen_," Finas interjected, with a dourness not unlike a severely harried kindergarten teacher.

Casimiro looked over his shoulder, rolled his eyes, and shrugged. He did deign to leave the kitchenette alone, though, which was a small victory. He tossed himself into the booth across from Conrad and kicked his feet up on the tabletop, dusty soles about an inch from Conrad's nose.

The three of them were alone in the RV that evening, and Worth wasn't due back for another hour even if the clinic was properly staffed for once. Here Conrad was, all alone and without backup holding down the home fort, and this was so perfectly normal for them that he had hardly even thought twice about it when Worth grabbed his coat and sauntered out the door earlier that evening. It was only now, with these bastards nosing around like curious wolves sniffing a carcass, that it occurred to Conrad how he'd accidentally placed himself in the position of distressed housewife.

This realization was not sitting well with him.

He looked down at the box of calling cards that Casimiro's feet had pushed nearly into his lap. He lifted up the one on the top of the stack, gingerly. _Madame Von Corinth_, in silver filigree letters, with a tasteful pictogram of a family crest in the left corner. Effective design. Conrad wondered if he had known the artist who worked these up.

Most of the cards had arrived alone, a few of them simply appearing on the kitchen counter in time for breakfast, but this one came in an envelope yesterday with a servant who had looked ambiguously and unnervingly inhuman. He'd disappeared by the time Conrad had been able to look up from the wax seal.

"Calling cards?" Conrad said, shoving Casimiro's shoes off the table. "What is this, 1805?"

Casimiro shrugged, apparently unperturbed. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's not like you can just _cheep_ people anymore."

"Tweet," Conrad corrected, vaguely.

Casimiro made a huffing noise. "Bird noises, whatever. The point is, it's a society thing. You get a card when you debut in _Beau Monde_, voila, somebody just happens to throw a ball, people talk about titles and land and blood feuds and duels and everyone goes home nursing a grudge. Ritzy stuff."

_"Boomoond?"_ Conrad echoed, suddenly very aware of his shitty high school level grasp of French. What right did a philistine like Casimiro have to perfect romance language pronunciation? Where did he even pick that up? Conrad's internal diatribe skipped a grove - wait, the egregious tool was _Italian,_ wasn't he?

"It means the Beautiful World," Finas elaborated, still lurking like a stout blue shadow at the edge of the room. "High society, so to speak."

"Oh." Conrad pressed on the card with both thumbs so it made wobbling noises in his hands. His foot was jittering on the floor. "But I've been a vampire for years now, and I never debuted anywhere."

"_Well_," Casimiro said, settling his cheek on his fist in a deliberately casual way, "honestly Achenleck, you're kind of an embarrassment to _la ton_, I mean, running around with soldiers of fortune and drinking out of baggies, and then there's the matter of your _heritage_. An escaped felon for a sire, and an unplanned one at that? You're basically the bastard child of Marie Antoinette and the Marquis de Sade."

Maybe it was a little bit hypocritical to feel so offended by a society he didn't give half a damn about five minutes ago, but there you go. Yet another in a long line of clubs Conrad Achenleck wasn't cool enough to attend.

Conrad looked back to the calling card he was wiggling nervously in his hands. He thought about it. "Why now?" he asked. "I mean, what changed?"

Casimiro examined his nails, cheek still pushed up under the knuckles of his other hand. "It would _seem_ that a few of the lords and ladies heard about your familial dispute last spring," he said, glancing briefly aside at Conrad. "Nasty stuff, these family matters. Word on the street is that you won a duel with a hole punched through your chest. Of course, yannow, all her titles are yours now."

"But," Conrad stammered. "But we never told anybody how she died. How could anybody _possibly_ know there was a duel?"

The Italian vampire made a face like he was about to start whistling loudly, and that was really the last goddamn straw. Conrad reached across the table and smacked him upside the head.

Casimiro rolled his head and made a pained noise. "What the hell, Achenleck?"

"Sorry," Conrad snarled, "I thought you'd dodge it."

Casimiro glared out of his good eye. Conrad glared right back. After a tense minute the older vampire sat back, and then he grinned. "Your detective must have spilled the beans, kid. He's not exactly stellar when it comes to keeping gossip quiet. Word got around and you can just imagine what it was like in the courts _that_ day. _Well, _the judge says, _he didn't technically violate any laws. And Adelaide was such a bitch!_ _Oh yes_, says the chief speaker, _but we're not inviting him to the parties_! _Heavens_ no!"

"Um."

"Anyhow, that woulda been the end of that except a few of the guys took an interest I guess, did a little research, and what do they happen to turn up but an account of you singlehandedly slaughtering a nuckelavee in a Redcap camp?"

Conrad carefully did not move a muscle in his face while panicking quietly in his seat.

"And then they ask around summore," Casimiro went on, an incredulous laugh bubbling up around his words, "and suddenly everyone's saying, yeah, I heard he killed a _djinn._ Oh, oh, and then there's my favorite one, you and that junkie freak apparently took out an entire Wild Hunt in one night, singlehandedly, while on the run? Who the hell came up with this shit?"

"Actually," Conrad mumbled, "we couldn't take out the wild hunter."

Casimiro blinked. His mismatched eyes narrowed slightly. "The hunter."

"Deer skull," the younger vampire explained, staring determinately at his calling card. "Big gaudy carriage. Voice like a Led Zeppelin concert."

"…Huh."

They were quiet for a contemplative moment.

"Weeeeell," Casimiro said, at last, "anyhow, some of the big wigs apparently got the impression you were deliberately playing dumb on us. So here you are, with a box full of cards. Me 'n Fin, of course, we wanted to stop by and congratulate you personal like."

The Italian reached into the box and pulled up a black card with an intimidating raised font. He whistled appreciatively. "Check it out Finas, he's got one from Valkuren. Damn, she never sent _us _any cards."

Finas looked thoughtful.

Conrad snatched the card back and tried to makes head or tails of the curled script. Was that even English? "Is she somebody important?"

"She was the head judge of the court that convicted Adelaide," Finas observed. "She's very powerful."

"The hoity-est of toities," Casimiro agreed. "But, hey, now that you're Lord of the Léglise estates…"

Conrad dropped his head into his hands. "I'm doomed."

Casimiro snickered. "What, most fledglings would be _grateful _for that kind of title. Most of us have to hang around scheming for decades before we get so much as a _laird_ for our troubles."

"Yeah?" Conrad peaked through a couple fingers. "What've you got?"

Casimiro waved a hand. "Pshh, me, titles? I leave the rank squabbling for those less interested in a long lifespan. Finas and me have sort of… middling status. You hang around long enough and you're sure to pick _something_ up."

"That's what I figured," Conrad moaned, vividly imagining a future full of complicated social taboos and assassination attempts. He never asked to be nobility. He had an American greencard for crying out loud.

"Hey, you really _should_ be grateful, though."

"Mmph. Why's that?"

Casimiro grinned, like a cat with a cornered mouse. "Because," he said, "you think we don't have rules about bringing baby bats into the world? There's nasty penalties for kids like you—you'd know that if you spent any time with _la ton_."

"Penalties…?"

"Oh, sure," the Italian replied, "nasty stuff. You ever read _Interview with the Vampire_? Think Claudia. Think Claudia with an extra helping of public execution. Luckily, you," he went on, winking, "just so happen to be in a fortuitous realm of legality. See the trick is, if you wanna make a vampire, first you gotta kill a vampire. In a roundabout sorta way, Addie saved the good doc's bacon."

"Oh."

"So," Casimiro said, flicking a card at Conrad's head, "how's the baby, anyway?"

"The... the what?"

"The baby batty boy!"

Conrad gaped. On a scale of gargoyle to grand canyon, he was pretty sure he scored a solid 9 gape. "…My god you mean Worth. Worth. He is... he's older than_ I_ am."

"Nah," Casmiro replied, "clock sort of resets when you die the big death. Guess you finally got the edge on somebody kid. Wait, you have a card from Angelus? Pfff, hey, if he ever offers to show you his collection of stamps, just say no, okay?"

"Er. Noted?"

Casimiro shifted through the box, apparently looking for something. He made a displeased noise and fished something up from the underside of the mess. "Why are our cards at the bottom? That's weak, man. Real weak."

Conrad wracked his brain. "I… think you sent them first. I didn't get it at the time."

"What did you think these things were, fancy firestarters?"

"No, not _precisely_. I didn't know what the fuck they were or how they were even _getting_ to me. I still don't, actually. I wish they would stop. I have a box—" Conrad gestured pointedly downward, "—do you understand? A _box_ of these."

Casimiro gave him a skeptical look, the kind that is only _slightly_ too tactful to suggest you might be medically retarded and is still considering the option. Conrad tucked his neck into his shoulders and redirected his attention. There was something about all this that was bothering him…

"So, um, when you say..." he started, "I mean. When you say _baby_, you mean that in a rude sort of... fake way, right? He's not actually like my baby or anything, right?"

Slowly, Casimiro looked up from the box and smiled. It was not a nice smile. "Wow," he drawled, "look at him squirm, Finas. You'd think he's banging his kid or something."

Conrad was faintly aware of turning an ugly shade of eggplant purple.

There was a faintly disapproving sigh from Finas' direction. "It's not a biological relation," he explained, taking some pity on Conrad. "You are to teach him how to be a vampire, just as a father teaches his son how to fend for himself."

Casimiro stuck out his lip like a pouting kindergartener. "You're no fun, Fin."

"So you tell me."

"Me and everybody." The Italian turned back to Conrad. "Yeah, it's more… batman and robin young ward kinda stuff. Crimefighting is optional."

Conrad let out an instinctive sigh of relief, and then cringed. Breathing in front of older vampires, what an absolute greenhorn. "Oh," he said. "Still a little skeezy, but. Better."

Casimiro didn't look away from the card he'd gone back to examining. "You sometimes get that whole _turning the person you love_ thing, but it's not as common as you'd think. Fornicating with the food is frowned upon, you know?"

_No, I did not know_. "Right, sure, yeah, that would be. Dumb. Do you know anybody who did that?"

"Hell no! we're classy assholes."

"Oh."

Finas slipped across the room and plucked the card from Casimiro's hands. "Cas, you're being deliberately obtuse." He turned back to the younger vampire and handed him the card, and then added: "Everyone is already aware that you and the doctor are an item, Conrad. There's no law against it."

Oh, it was a little hard to tell if Conrad's heart was rising or sinking at this point. The emotional reactions were getting pretty muddy. "Everyone?" he repeated, weakly.

Finas and Casimiro exchanged a brief look.

"Everyone," they replied.

(A)


End file.
